| Add diabetes screening benefits for Medicare, Medicaid enrollees |
|
Preventive medicine is hardly a new concept. Any public or private sector employee who pays health insurance premiums knows that periodic screenings and wellness exams are routinely covered by insurers as a way to avert more costly medical problems later.
And since insurers want to cut costs, the ounce-of-prevention approach must work. Assuming that's the case, then why wouldn't federally funded medical programs want to do the same, for example, when it comes to early detection of diabetes? That's the question that U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., raised last week at various stops in the Southern Tier where he advocated legislation to force Medicare and Medicaid programs to pay for diabetes screening for patients who are at a high risk to incur the disease. The basic intent of his proposal makes a great deal of sense, not just for patients but also for taxpayers who ultimately shoulder the huge medical bills necessitated when a diabetes patient needs major medical attention for a disease that can be caught and controlled earlier. Medicare is the federally funded program for people 65 and older and the disabled. Medicaid, as most every New York taxpayer knows, taps into county, state and federal funds to pay for health coverage for the needy, aged, blind and disabled. With both programs solely dependent on local, state and federal money, any move that will keep patients healthy should be preferred over a program that is strictly reactive and kicks in after a patient becomes ill. That's Schumer's whole point in insisting that screenings, education services and medical exams be covered by Medicare and Medicaid so that the patients don't even have to offer up a co-pay, which could deter them from seeking early-intervention services. The New York senator chose the Southern Tier to push his idea because an estimated 36,000 residents in 12 Southern Tier counties have diabetes, according to numbers provided by Schumer's office. The rates for local counties such as Chemung, Steuben, Schuyler and Tioga, N.Y., fall in the 8 percent range. And those are just the cases that health professionals know about. As obesity rates rise to around 60 percent of the adult populations in Southern Tier counties, diabetes becomes a greater concern with each passing year. Add to that fact a trend toward rising obesity among children and teens in the Southern Tier -- as high as 38 percent for third-graders -- and the problem becomes even more daunting for health care providers. It really comes down to a question of pay a little now for screening and prevention or a lot later for major medical treatment. The choice is obvious, and so is the solution. Schumer's legislation should be approved. It ought to be an easy choice for Congress. Comments (0)
 Write comment
|
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
